Croixstone Consulting Celebrates 7th Business Anniversary

“On our lucky number 7 business anniversary, I offer the deepest thanks to our consultants, search professionals, clients, leadership team, business partners, friends and family to whom we owe the ongoing success of our unique firm.”

– Patti Weber, CEO

Where it began: 7 years ago this month, our founders Patti Weber (a former leader with Accenture and public school educator) and Mark Weber (a serial entrepreneur, consulting industry veteran, and former staffing industry executive) launched Croixstone Consulting in a former photography studio loft in Charlotte’s vibrant South End neighborhood.

The inspiration: The conventional consulting industry is notorious for recycling PowerPoint decks and burning out its consultants. These practices, along with other systemic issues in the consulting industry, contribute to the delivery of subpar services to clients. The Webers believed there was an opportunity to build a high-performing, boutique firm around consulting industry mavericks (known as constructive noncomformists) who could deliver their expertise and passions in a better way, while concurrently fueling innovation and solving problems for clients.

The name: Rivers are an indispensable part of our lives, and they are wonderful gifts from nature that have the power to teach us. The inspiration for Croixstone’s name is the St. Croix River (French: Holy Cross), a tributary of the Mississippi River that forms a border between the states of Wisconsin (the home state of the Webers) and Minnesota (where the firm’s founders each began their careers).

The right way to say our name: “kroy-stone.”

Our achievements: We’ve packed a lot into our 7 years in business. As a small but mighty firm, we not only survived, but thrived, amidst the global pandemic. We owe a huge thank you to all those who believed in our ability to deliver a differentiated business model for our consultants, clients and internal leadership team. Here are some of our key achievements over the past 7 years:

• 2016 – Croixstone was launched in Loft 309 of the former Lance Crackers building on South Boulevard in Charlotte’s trendy South End neighborhood.

• 2017 – Inspired by a future of work conference that Mark Weber attended in NYC, Croixstone relocated to the One South tower in Uptown Charlotte and is a founding member of the Industrious coworking community.

• 2019 – Croixstone launched the firm’s human capital and executive search practices.

• 2020 – Croixstone received national certification as a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) by the Greater Women’s Business Council, a regional certifying partner of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). Additionally, Patti Weber was accepted a part of a competitive application process into FORTUNE magazine’s “Rebuild Program.”

• 2021 – Patti Weber was selected as one of only 25 women in the USA to participate in the “Accelerated Growth Program” sponsored by Wells Fargo and hosted by the National Association of Women Business Owners. Additionally, Patti was also named to The Charlotte Ledger’s 2021 “Forty Over 40” list in recognition for her contributions in making Charlotte a better place to live, work and play.

• 2022 – Croixstone landed on the Charlotte Business Journal’s “Fast 50” list as the Charlotte region’s second fastest-growing private company.

• 2023 – Croixstone was ranked #11 on Inc. magazine’s fourth annual “Inc. 5000 Regionals: Mid-Atlantic” list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Learn more: Checkout Croixstone’s Linktree to learn more about unique firm.


ChatGPT and Job Seekers

“If used as a guide, distiller of content and framework, ChatGPT could have many benefits for its job-seeking users.”

– Robin Reshawn (Executive Career Strategist and Contributor to USNews.com)

What is ChatGPT?: ChatGPT is short for “Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer” and is an artificial chatbot developed by OpenAI. The technology was released in November 2022. ChatGPT has the fastest-growing customer base of any technology in history.

Why you need to become familiar with ChatGPT: As shared by Alan Murray (President and CEO of Fortune magazine), “generative A.I. is likely to have the most profound impact on the business world of any technology since the PC.” Paul Dougherty, CTO of Accenture, said that what is coming is a reinvention “of the way work is done, dramatically amplifying what people can achieve.”

Job Seekers are using ChatGPT: A Forbes magazine article published last month shared that 46% of 1,000 current and recent job seekers surveyed by ResumeBuilder.com used ChatGPT to craft their resumes or cover letters. The job search can be a tedious and time-consuming journey, and ChatGPT can deliver incredible time savings and helpful resume writing capabilities.

Yes, but: If not used the right way, the content delivered by ChatGPT risks being generic and buzzword heavy. Resume writers also risk losing their voice in building what should be a tailored marketing document. We recommend that job seekers regard ChatGPT as a great tool that delivers many benefits, however, it needs to be used with an eye toward understanding its limitations and how to best compensate for its shortfalls.

The bottom line: Job seekers should become familiar with ChatGPT and how to best incorporate the emerging technology into their searches. The experience gained will not only deliver benefits to the job search, but it will also help the job seeker to better understand how the technology might be applied in the workplace.

Learn more: We like the insights shared in a February 2023 article published by USNews.com entitled “Using ChatGPT for Your Resume and Job Search.” Read the article here.


What’s Top of Mind for CEOs

Fortune Magazine and Deloitte have partnered to track the perspectives and actions of CEOs from the world’s largest and most influential companies. Every 4 months, the duo gathers key insights into CEOs’ priorities, challenges, and expectations across 15 industries, including finance, health care, and technology.

At the end of last month, Fortune/Deloitte shared the results of their latest survey that revealed that a growing number of chief executives expect pandemic disruptions to continue. Additionally, they remain bullish about growth while they are focused on talent, and taking action on climate change.

Our key takeaway from the latest survey?

Talent remains a top priority for CEOs.

Nearly three-quarters of CEOs say they expect labor and skills shortages to in influence or disrupt their strategy over the next 12 months. When asked about the biggest challenge they face, nearly 50% of CEOs name challenges related to talent – up from a 25% in the Fortune/Deloitte summer survey.

Asked separately about the top three challenges to their organization’s talent and workforce goals, the major of CEOs named attracting and recruiting talent (57%), designing a post-pandemic workplace (53%), and retaining talent (51%). Building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce is also high on the list of challenges for 43% of CEOs.

Click here to read the full report.


Croixstone Consulting Turns “5”

We are celebrating!  Founded by Patti Weber and Mark Weber in 2016, Croixstone Consulting celebrates its fifth business anniversary this month.  Launched in a loft in Charlotte’s South End neighborhood with the aspiration to provide a highly-differentiated business model in management consulting, Croixstone has grown rapidly thanks to the deep expertise, talents and support of our consulting team, internal staff and partners/supporters.

As all entrepreneurs understand, the art of the start-up is filled with times of both great exhilaration and sleepless nights (hello global pandemic)!  We are fortunate in that our five-year ride at Croixstone has been one of tremendous positivity. 

Here are some of our favorite special moments over the past 5 years. 

  • Launch:  Croixstone began operations in June 2016 in Loft 309 in the former Lance Crackers building on South Boulevard in Charlotte’s booming South End neighborhood.
  • Hello Uptown:  Croixstone relocated from the start-up loft to the new Industrious Charlotte Uptown co-working community in the Bank of America Plaza tower at Trade & Tryon in December 2017.
  • TABL:  Croixstone introduced TABL, the firm’s unique culinary team building experience, with a playful social media launch in January 2018.
  • New Practice Area:  Croixstone announced the launch of its new human capital solutions practice and a new executive search offering in June 2019.
  • FORTUNE Magazine:  Croixstone announced in May 2020 that Patti Weber (CEO) had been accepted as part of a competitive application process into FORTUNE magazine’s Rebuild Program that was inspired in response to the global pandemic.
  • Hello NoDa:  Croixstone relocated into larger offices in the newly-opened Industrious Charlotte NoDa co-working community in June 2020.
  • Supplier Diversity Certification:  Croixstone received national certification in July 2020 as a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) by the Greater Women’s Business Council, a regional certifying partner of the Women’s Enterprise National Council (WBENC).
  • Accelerated Growth:  Croixstone announced in January 2021 that Patti Weber (CEO) was one of 25 women across the USA accepted in the NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners) Accelerated Growth Program sponsored by Wells Fargo.
  • Forty Over 40:  Croixstone’s CEO Patti Weber was named as a “Forty Over 40” award recipient by The Charlotte Ledger in May 2021.

We’re Serving Up Consulting BUZZ!

Our leaders at Croixstone spend time each week speaking at length with clients, prospects and consultants across the greater Charlotte region and beyond. We’re often asked the following questions by those in our professional networks.

What’s the buzz out there?
What is top of mind for companies in 2021?
What are you hearing from consultants?

Here’s a bulleted list, in no particular order, of the things we are hearing and seeing from clients, prospects and consultants.

  • Hiring is difficult.  The economy is rebounding, hiring is up, and it is increasingly difficult to fill roles with top-tier talent.  The latest Workforce Report from LinkedIn provides insights into the hiring boom.
  • SPACs are hot, hot, hot.  Special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) IPOs were more active in Q1 2021 than through all of 2020.
  • ERP implementation activity is robust.  Many of our clients are planning ERP implementations to go live in 2022.  The global ERP software market size stood at USD 38.15 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 71.63 billion by 2026, exhibiting a CAGR of 8.55.
  • COVID-19 trauma is an ongoing issue.  Employers are dealing with employee pandemic stress that is inevitably spilling over into at-work life.

New Year. New Possibilities.

Isn’t it terrific that we get the opportunity every year to hit the “reset” button? A fresh start.  A new runway to consider the possibilities to reimagine your life, your career and your personal growth in the year ahead.

Croixstone is launching into 2021 following a year of significant achievements where we:  

  • Celebrated our 4th business anniversary
  • Achieved record sales
  • Marked the 1-year anniversary of our Human Capital practice
  • Expanded our geographic service footprint to the western USA
  • Earned two national diversity certifications & one state diversity certification
  • Gained acceptance into FORTUNE Magazine’s new “Rebuild Program”
  • Introduced a new suite of services for Private Equity
  • Relocated to a larger office in Charlotte’s NoDa district
  • Launched a virtual series of professional development & networking events

While recognizing the continued health and economic challenges facing our nation, the Croixstone team is excited to build on last year’s momentum in making the most of 2021 together with our employees, clients, partners, friends and family.

Let’s go.


Fortune’s 6th Annual “Change the World” List

On September 21, 2020, Fortune Magazine revealed its sixth annual “Change the World” list, which showcases over 50 companies that have made an important social or environmental impact through their profit-making strategy and operations this year. 

Three companies from the Southeast USA made the list:

#15 Charlotte-based Bank of America

#49 Atlanta-based UPS

#51 Miami-based ChenMed  

Explore the full list here.


Patti Weber, Croixstone’s CEO, joins FORTUNE’s Rebuild Program.

We are excited to announce that Patti Weber has been accepted into FORTUNE magazine’s new Rebuild Program. Introduced by FORTUNE on May 4, 2020, the Rebuild Program helps small business owners to tackle today’s pressing challenges.

As a leader in the program, Patti will participate in six weekly virtual conversations, featuring industry consultants and experts and moderated by FORTUNE editors.  Accepted as part of a competitive application process, Patti will participate in the program with leaders from other U.S.-based companies with fewer than 500 employees. 

Learn more here.